You used to be able to finagle with the G5 iMacs a bit but I think the newer ones are pretty sealed up. Hatch in the bottom to put more RAM in, anything more serious than that and you're talking about major dismantling and loss of warranty. You could possibly get a local apple shop to do it for a small fee and keep the warranty.

Jon

That assumes you have enough space to do it.

You can get the 21" higher spec model with just an SSD.

I'm greedy. I'd want the 27" screen

If they're anything like the other SSD enabled models, then unless you spec it at the check out, you can't retro fit the SSD.
The bay the SSD uses requires a carrier, and at the moment, nobody is making a third party version.

I'm actually kind of considering one. I was thinking about buying a cinema display to go with my Mac pro but it's actually getting a bit creaky for certain things and the highest CPU spec iMac is actually faster and has a better video card - I bought the very weediest Mac Pro you could get at the time and this was a few years ago. Even so, I could probably get enough second hand for my Mac Pro that replacing it with an i7 iMac would actually be a lower net cost than buying a 27" cinema display, especially with academic discount.

The one kicker is whether any TBolt drives/enclosures are going to show up soon, because I have several SATA hard drives in the Mac Pro as it stands. I could probably live with one internal drive if I upgraded it to 2TB, but I'd much prefer to have fast external storage. Lacie are doing a tBolt drive that looks quite nice but I'm not sure I'd trust a Lacie drive to hold anything I'd actually miss.

Jon

(shakes head)
After vast dithering and internal argument I was, literally, just about to buy a 15" MBP + 23" monitor when t' b'stewards come along with this lot, groan, all that dithering again,

Luvverly machines tho' so shouldn't be complaining...

I was speaking to Nic about it last night and the top spec model looks like the one (£1550 with discount) and a 4GB upgrade from Crucial. I'll not bother with any hardware upgrades TBH as the spec as it is will more than do.

I have the choice to buy it on the Apple finance program or pay for it outright after the wedding (September). I'm going to choose to wait but out of curiosity thought I'd see what the finance plan worked out at. I went through the checkout and selected to finance plan and the only thing left to do was press continue upon which I'll get an invoice and what not. But... at this point it's still not said what the finance repayments would be. I'm curious then when do you actually find out. Surely it's not once you've committed to buying?

Is replacing the HD in them still tricky/unsupported?

Also any built-to-order options with matte screens?

I'm almost certain to get one very soon!

The glossy screen thing really depends on the lighting in the place you use it. In my last workplace, we had the 2009 iMacs, and they were gorgeous. The reflections were minimal, unless you happened to be with a bright light at the wrong place.

I've got a window at 90 degrees but a couple of meters from the screen (and 50cm higher than the desk), and the room has neutral walls. Have a pendant shade for light in the evenings, I don't use any desk lamps. I agree they look lovely, just always been concerned about glossy finishes!

I do think, as main professional photographers and designers will buy them, there should be an option for matte. I'd never buy a top end monitor with a glossy screen.

If you're buying the 27" job I'd possibly consider adding in the upgraded video card as a BTO option, but that's about the only thing.


I noticed that. I can't remember how but I did manage to get a finance quote which turned out to be rather reasonable. Certainly less than buying it on a card. However, I'd have to sit down and work out if it was still less than buying it on a card then immediately switching it to another card with a '0% for 12 months' offer on, which is what I did with the Mac pro. They do charge a 'transfer fee' up front (usually 5% of the balance transferred) so it's not entirely straightforward. I have a feeling after doing the sums it'll turn out to be something like £50 less in total one way or the other in £1500, at which point TBH you might as well go for whichever is easiest rather than cheapest.


Yes and yes.


No, the only option about screen is which of the two sizes do you want.

Jon

Veato - is this discount summat I can get or just available to you? Haven't started trawling the net yet so any pointers would be most welcome...

Isofar - seems we work under very similar conditions! My walls are painted a delightfully delicate shade of APPLE green

I looked at this as its only a £75 option but the difference is 6970M 1GB > 6970M 2GB. I'm not sure what benefit I'd get from the 1GB extra gfx RAM and the £75 could go towards a new desk or speakers or something.



It's discount through a work benefit package. On the top spec iMac (no upgrades) it works out at £99 cheaper